"Hello, Professor Dumbledore." James said as turned around to face the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Dumbledore looked at each one of them in turn, and showed a particular amount of interest when his eyes sought Alex, Lillian, and Jamie.
"Hmm... I don't recall seeing you three before. Perhaps in my growing age my memory has escaped me. Would you like to tell me your names and help me remember?" Dumbledore said, and James barely stiffled a laugh at the thought of Dumbledore tricking the three mysterious arrivals at Hogwarts their names to see if they could be trusted or not."
Jamie was the first to take up on the offer, and James saw that his two siblings exchanged nervous glances. "Hello, sir!" Jamie said jovially. "I am Jamie, and these are my brother, Alex, and my sister, Lillian." Jamie attempted to put his arms around them, but Lillian shook it off and Alex stepped away. Clearly they were still mad at their older brother.
For a while, Dumbledore said nothing, looking thoughtful. " And your last name?" He asked innocently.
The reaction that followed was simultaneous. Jamie, Alex, and Lillian all looked like they had been slapped across their face and appeared to all be thinking very quickly.
"Our last name, sir?" Alex asked hesitantly.
"Yes." Dumbledore said.
"Oh, um, our last name is P... P... Porter! Yeah, that's our last name!" Alex said triumphantly, and James narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The boy was obviously lying. However, Dumbledore hadn't appeared to acknowledge the fact of Alex's strange behavior (or else he ignored it, which James thought to be more likely, as James didn't recognize the name "Porter" to belong to any of the Death Eaters names that he knew, and Dumbledore probably knew about more Death Eaters than he did).
"Er, Professor?" Lillian asked.
"Yes, Mrs. Porter?" Dumbledore inquired.
"Well, we were about to come up to your office to tell you something, so..." Lillian trailed off, apparently at a loss of words, which made James suspicions about the three of them rise tremendously. Luckily for them, Alex spoke up.
"So, we were wondering if we could go up there with you, to tell you that thing we wanted to tell you about."
" You are more than welcome to tell me here, Mr. Porter." Dumbledore said, and the three siblings looked uncomfortable.
" Well, it's more of a private matter, sir." Lillian said, and Dumbledore nodded.
"All right, dear. Follow me." Dumbledore said, and he walked up the steps of Hogwarts castle, closely followed by Alex, Lillian, and Jamie.
Once the large oak doors of Hogwarts castle had shut behind them, James turned around to face his friends. "What was that about, do you reckon?"
Sirius shrugged. "Dunno. But they didn't really seem like Death Eaters, did they? I mean, I lived with dark wizards my entire life, and I've never heard the name "Porter"."
"But you still think something is up with the pair of them?" Remus said, and James and Sirius nodded.
"They didn't seem strange." Peter said, looking downcast.
"Are you kidding, Wormtail? Three people just showed up at Hogwarts and you don't find that the least bit peculiar? Not to mention the fact that they are clearly lying about who they are." Sirius said, laughing.
James suddenly grinned, an idea forming in his mind. Remus noticed and narrowed his eyes at him. " Are you thinking what I think your thinking?" He asked. James nodded.
Remus sighed. "Well, I won't be abel to see you anyway, and there's nothing in the Prefect's manual that advises again invisibility cloaks, so go ahead." He waved his hand aside, and James grabbed Sirius's hand and dragged him up the castle steps.
They had waited about an hour to allow Alex, Lillian, and Jamie to talk to Dumbledore, and now James and Sirius were both hunched up under the cloak that James's father had given him when he had first come to Hogwarts, looking intently down onto the map that they had created a year ago as they walked down the middle of a deserted hallway. "Do you see them?" James hissed as he struggled to keep the cloak over top of them both. Sirius shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed to the bit of parchament that revealed to them where everything and everyone in Hogwart's was at the time.
After about a minute or two of searching Sirius looked up from the map, face pale with shock. "James." he said.
"Yes?" James asked, sparing a glance to look at his very best friend.
"They're not on here."
